Battle of the Minds: Ehrlock Shemos
by TEKNAM
Summary: Trial One-shot. "Zack Fair was a lot better at hiding things about himself than people knew... it was this trait, combined with extreme intellect and an advanced ability to perceive and plan that allowed him to survive his "death". What choices will he make now, as the legendary detective Ehrlock Shemos? From the Desk of Johana W. Hastings". Rated T for now. Zack/Cissnei pairing.


[A/N]Hello again all, this is just another little trial while working on the Kuuga chapters. I recently watched "Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows" and this popped into my head. ^^;

Zack Fair lived his entire life under a giant lie: he had one of the world's strongest minds, and the ability to perceive things before they happened with just a glance. However, the stress of having to put his own best friend and mentor Angeal down for good caused his carefully crafted falsehood to crack. Spending as much time as he could around those closest to him helped him heal… but in Incident at Nibelheim caused a full breakdown. Now, four years after, he's escaped ShinRa custody and the military, while all the while planning for a time when he'd be able to escape it all. Now, he's at the moment where the end of his life should be nigh… but what the arm doesn't know is that this has all been his plan from the very beginning… that they're all playing into the hand of the greatest mind ever known…

_**_  
FINAL FANTASY VII: CRISIS CORE X SHERLOCK HOLMES X-OVER  
_**_

_**A BATTLE OF MINDS: THE LIFE AND TIMES OF ERHLOCK SHEMOS**_

PROLOGUE: A PRELUDE OF WITS TO COME  
_  
_**Taken From the Memoires of Johana W. Hastings**_

_~It all started in the thirtieth century. The year was 3127, coming up on the turn of the decade. I know many people don't consider that a focal point of their lives, but it was for him. _

_The man was known as Zacharias Fair to those around the city of Midgar and, in particular, to those within the ShinRa Electric Power Company's walls as simply Zack. Zack was always an upbeat man with nothing more to prove than his own strength, and nothing he wanted to gain more than the recognition of his skills and the induction into Midgar's Hall of Heroes, if only for the status. He didn't care about the wealth or the power and influence that came with it… All he ever wanted was to be seen as a hero in the eyes of his people; the people he fought to protect. Unfortunately for him, this included becoming a fugitive and running until the end of his life at the top of a cliff face, gunned down by the very military he once fought alongside and trained._

_Ironic in two ways… one, in that his life was brought to an abrupt end by those who aided him in his quest for greatness… and two, in that his life only ended to those who knew he even existed._

_That's right, dear reader: ZACK FAIR SURVIVED THAT ORDEAL. However, as he was classified as KIA, he was able to reinvent himself and allow himself a chance at a new life, knowing full well that the military was no real place for a hero._

_However, few things in life are ever as they seem, and they rarely go the way we wish. These two facts were never truer for anyone, except Zack._

_Zack was diagnosed at the age of four with a condition that baffled doctors; he was able to work out problems in mathematics and science that most scholars would have taken years to solve… and, when he was six, took to his father's study to help solve a murder case in the small valley town of Gongaga. He was soon proven to have an IQ of over three-hundred-fifty points, making him one of the brightest children in the world, outshined only by the likes of the rising youth named Sephiroth and his friend Genesis._

_However, as his crime solving spree climbed, so too did the severity of the cases he took on. Finally, he let go of it all at the age of ten, not even four years to the day he began, when the criminals he was pursuing took a six-year-old girl hostage and killed her in front of him. Of course, he has only referred to it as "The Incident" since we've worked together, but I happen to know the sort of man my partner in crime fighting is… and the sort of man he WAS before we got into this business._

_For you, the reader, to fully understand these words, I must go backwards and tell you the story. _

_So if you haven't yet, recline in your seat, get comfortable, grab a snack… and come along with me on a journey that not one other man has EVER embarked upon…_

_It all started on July 3__rd__ of 3127, on the cliff-tops outside of the Midgar Slums. No one would have been able to tell otherwise, but a battle of colossal proportions was going down that would go down in history as one of the most crippling to the ShinRa Corporation. It was so big in scale that they'd called in almost every infantryman and SOLDIER Operative they had, along with multiple tanks and a set of helicopters for rocket support. However, it wasn't the tank blasts going off or the missiles exploding that got the attention of the street-dwelling citizens miles away. The sounds that reached their ears were much different._

_A swing of metal. A burst of gunfire. A sizzling sound borne of a Fire spell torching flesh to ash._

_These sounds and more filled the air as a single man took on an entire army alone with nothing but a massive sword in his hands and his dreams on his sleeve._

_This man was Zack Fair; the Zack Fair I knew before everything I knew came crashing down around me. This wasn't the serious, brash, anti-social, borderline psychotic, super-intelligent mega sleuth that most of the Sector 1 slums knew by an entirely different name…_

_No…_

_This Zack Fair was happy-go-lucky, constantly positive, and always wore a seemingly eternal grin that made him look like an unintelligent fool spending millions of dollars on junk._

_He always had that stupid grin on his face… that's one of the many reasons people started a fan club in his honor when he made SOLDIER 1__st__ Class… I always found it strange how it was only after a member of the super elite SOLDIER unit reached 1__st__ Class rank that a fan club mysteriously popped up in their honor, but that's for another time._

_In any case, back to the man formerly known as Zack._

_Zack was still underdeveloped in several ways; his mindset and what he allowed people to see of his vaster intelligence were always considered two places he could have improved._

_However, going into this situation against the military was not something Zack had neglected to plan for. The entire incident at Nibelheim with Sephiroth at the Mako Reactor, however… that only served as the catalyst to the re-awakening of his special talents._

_He told me weeks after we joined forces that he'd spent an entire week inside that mansion in Nibelheim, taking out what soldiers and operatives came at him. He even managed to send me former employers running wounded several times… My boss was never too pleased to hear we'd failed AGAIN._

_That was to be his final day alive to the eyes of ShinRa… he'd planned to take out as many as he could before faking his death by wearing a second bullet-proof vest directly underneath his shirt, which he'd lined with pouches of thick red fluid that looked like blood. He repeated the process on his standard-issue SOLDIER vest and pants, and had even added extra layers of armor to his arms and legs, JUST below the sleeves of his shirt and his pant legs to give him a stronger appearance. _

_Boy, he sure gave those military dogs a fight to remember. I think he told me he'd taken out a good five hundred of their men before he decided it was time to fake the rest. It was only after he'd allowed the military to think they'd gunned him down, and after his dragged-along, Mako-flooded friend Cloud Strife came along that Zack decided to put the extra icing on the cake, passing along not only his giant Buster Sword, but also all of his dreams and aspirations to Cloud… and then swallowing a sleeping pill, thus "dying" in front of the boy and leaving him to his own devices._

_Two hours later, he awoke and, making sure no one was around, got up, discarded his excess armor on the hill and took off running. He got a good fifty feet fro the gates of the Midgar Slums and took a running leap right over the gate, landing in a rolling jog that stopped, thankfully, just short of a barbed wire fence._

_From there, he spent a grueling four months slowly transforming himself from his old look to a new one to make sure no one would recognize him._

_In fact, I still remember, as clear as crystal, the day he showed up in my office at ShinRa headquarters… That day will go down in history as one of the most infamous days of my life… of OUR lives… no… of OUR LIFE.~_

_**~EHRLOCK SHEMOS~  
~MIDGAR STATION DOCK, 10:45 AM  
NOVEMBER 13**__**TH**__**, 3127~**_

It was a cold, overcast day in mid-November. A young woman, her wavy, amber hair blowing gently in the breeze as she strode down the streets, paid no heed to the world around her. For all intents and purposes, she'd failed her biggest mission ever four months prior and had been demoted to secretary in the Turks' main lobby.

"Great… dropped from active field duty and reduced to a desk jockey…" the woman mused for the umpteenth time in four months. Shaking her head, she looked ahead and saw a man in a long, ragged-looking cloak and a wide-brimmed brown hat, standing by the fountain, looking confused. Ever the good citizen, the woman walked up.

"Excuse me Sir, is everything alright? Do you need help?" she asked, sighing when the man seemed ignorant of her request. She waited a moment as the man lifted his head and looked around, then sighed again, walked around him and kept going. She wasn't expecting the man to suddenly reach out and grab her hand. She turned for half a second to look at her potential threat, only to gasp as the man used his free hand to reach up and pull the hood slightly off his head, revealing a pair of eyes she knew all too well. Not many people had sapphire-blue eyes with a deep, glowing ring of green around the pupils… not like…

"Z-Za-?" She stuttered, only to be forcefully cut off as he shot forward, clamping a hand around her mouth and pulling her, with speed neither knew he possessed, into an alleyway nearby. Once inside, he released his hold on her. The woman turned to the cloaked man.

"Z-Zack? I-is that you?" she asked, stunned. The man opened his cloak and let it fall to the ground with a dull rustle. The woman gasped, all but clamping her now shaking hands around her mouth.

To her joy, it was Zack, the man she'd failed to locate four months prior; however, to her dismay, he didn't look like the Zack she'd known at all. In place of the tight-fit clothes that accentuated his muscled figure, he now wore a simple purple sweater with an extra-long turtle-necked collar that he'd rolled up to cover his mouth. Around his head was a balaclava, making him look more like a thug than anything else. His legs were covered in green khaki pants that ended in black, mid-thigh-length rain-boots.

How did she know it was him, you might ask? Besides his eyes, she could recognize the subtle way he'd gripped her hand earlier; unlike any other guy she'd ever known, he hadn't grabbed her with a vice-grip, he'd been gentle and calm, almost as if he were a school boy catching the fleeting hand of his childhood crush, begging her not to leave without being forceful.

"Yeah… it's me… or, at least, what I've left of me to be seen," He said, his voice still vibrant and childlike, but missing his positive pep. He sounded like he was… wiser than he should have been.

"Zack, what happened?" the woman asked, her voice growing distressed and raising an octave, "One minute I hear you're heading toward ShinRa, the next I hear the military shouting on Comms about finding their target, and then the last thing I remember before I fainted was hearing "Target Neutralized". What happened? I thought you were … DEAD!" she shouted the last word with a combination of terror and anxiety in her voice, as if she suddenly wasn't even sure this was the man she knew. Zack simply shook his head.

"That's a long story… I'd prefer not to tell it standing up, if we can avoid it," He said, his voice dulling a bit, "My real reason for coming here today was to see you… and take you away from here." He dropped the last part of his sentence like it was a live warhead, and from the woman's reaction, it might as well have been JUST that.

"Wh-what do you mean, 'take me away from here'?" She said, her voice rife with denial, "I'm fine right here in Midgar! I don't want to be anywhere else!" Zack lurched forward and grabbed both her hands in that gentle grip of his, then pulled them up over her head and held them there with one of his own.

"Don't lie to me, Cissnei," Zack said, his eyes almost like lasers as they bored cold, freezing holes through hers into her soul, "I had a friend of mine keep tabs on you the last four months. I know my "death" hit you harder than anyone else; I know that you haven't slept well in the last four months, that you've been all but screaming my name during whatever fitful sleep you DO manage to have, and that your performance in your work had been slipping to the point that that bastard Tseng demoted you to a lowly desk job. I know I've hurt you these past four months, staying out of sight and "pretending" to be dead. But the simple fact of the matter is that if you stay here, knowing that I'm alive and well, they'll torture you to find out where I am. I don't want you to be hurt again. SO, I'm going to take you away. To be safe, I'll use what's left of my wages as a SOLDIER Operative to pay for a bit of minor plastic surgery to change your face, unless you don't want to. I just want to give you a better life… one that isn't all about fighting, hunting and killing."

Zack had unconsciously moved closer and closer to her, and there was now no more than half an inch between their noses. Cissnei could feel his breath almost coiling around her neck and face. It was warm and gaining heat… and it was driving her mad.

She'd had a fantasy before his "death", involving the two of them meeting up in the middle of Midgar in the dead of night. With no one else around, he'd pulled her in close for a heated kiss, then picked her up in his arms and moved to an abandoned alleyway, between two empty buildings. She'd gasp for breath in between his passionate kisses, trying hard to gain control… and then, without her realizing it, they'd both be on the ground, naked, making love on top of their clothes…

And then she'd wake up, look around…

And cry for hours, knowing her knight in shining armor had been taken from her by her own employer.

Now he was standing before her, alive… and enacting part two of her fantasy in his own way. Cissnei smiled.

"And say I accept your offer… what would I have to do?" she asked. Zack smiled with his eyes.

"All you'd have to do is act like I'm kidnapping you. THAT'S ALL. DO you accept?" Zack asked, his eyes gaining a look of wild, reckless mischief. Cissnei grinned.

"Tseng never found out… but I've always had an evil side. I think dropping him by one unit will be JUST the thing he needs to see the field for the flowers. Let's do it!" Cissnei replied. Zack nodded.

"Then I suggest you take a deep breath and get ready to scream for about five minutes. I'll tap you on the shoulder after that time; when I do, I want you to relax and go as limp as you can; we want them to think I knocked you out," Zack said, "Now… LET'S DO THIS!"

"W-wait, no-WHOA!" Cissnei shouted as Zack hoisted her under his arm and took off out into the street. As soon as she saw people, she started screaming.

"HELP! I'M BEING KIDNAPPED! HELP!" she shouted, beating her fists on Zack's back for effect. Zack smiled under his hood: all those years of SOLDIER training really paid off now. He continued to bolt down the street, long after the military patrols burst out into the fountain plaza, unloading round after round from their guns and sending not only the bullets, but the civilians on the street, flying. Zack took a single look back and allowed his eyes to quickly dart from one soldier to the next as they ran towards him, guns drawn and firing.

"_Boys and Girls, this is a quick demonstration of how you remove a nest of hornet's nest without getting stung,"_ Zack thought, his ability to analyze and plan kicking into high gear:

"_Step 1: Extend the ladder,"_ Zack said, pulling Cissnei from under his arm and tossing her into the air.

"_Step 2: Ground it."_ Zack vanished from sight, and then reappeared in between the five guards, none of whom had noticed yet. He lifted one leg and thrust it into the chest of the guard before him, cracking the man's ribs in four places and sending him hurtling back into the ground.

"_Step 3: Climb to the nest."_ Zack whipped around jumped on top of another guard so his arms were behind the man's legs and, with a hard pull, brought him crashing, face first, into the ground with a painful-sounding "crunch".

"_Step 4: Clip branches surrounding nest."_ Zack performed a wide leg sweep, knocking the other guards to their backs, where each soon received a painful kick to the head.

"_Step 5: Smoke 'em out."_ With that, Zack dropped his hood and produced from his pocket a small, white sphere. He grinned to the guards as looked up in time to see him drop the sphere on the ground, producing a thick cloud of white smoke that obscured their view. Zack took three steps back and reached up to catch Cissnei, who fell directly into his arms bridal-style.

"Last Step… MAKE YOUR ESCAPE," Zack finished his plan out loud, running off amidst the chaos with Cissnei in tow.

Feeling he could forego the silence tap at five minutes, Zack informed Cissnei of his change in plans. She nodded and kept quiet for the sake of the plan anyway. For ten minutes Zack ran, his legs never once getting sore or threatening to give out. Finally, running into the train terminal, Zack ran to the edge of the platform and grinned. Cissnei looked at his face, then at the train leaving the station. Realization hit her.

"No, Zack… whatever you're planning, don't you DARE DO IT!" she admonished, just in time to feel as Zack squatted down with one leg extended out in front of him. His other knee remained bent underneath Cissnei for support, but rested against her rear. Cissnei could feel herself heating up again. Zack swept his legs to one side in time to see the guards finally catching up. HE shifted, hoisting Cissnei up to rest, stomach down, on his shoulder. He lifted his free hand and waved "goodbye" to the guards with three fingers before giving Cissnei a hard pat on her ass and turning again in a straight-ahead dash.

When Zack all but slapped her butt, Cissnei flushed bright red, but as he turned and started running, she lost the blush instantly. She'd never been placed in a position as she was in now: resting on the shoulder of the man she loved, facing behind him as he ran toward the edge of a train platform, and watching a squad of guards firing on them as they went. Cissnei had found herself this close to death on many occasions, but NEVER like this! This was a new experience for her, and as Zack continued to run, holding her in place with an iron grip around her legs and taking teasing swipes at her exposed rear every now and again…

Suffice to say, the poor girl was feeling a little too close to faint for comfort.

She was shaken violently from the war between her brain and her hormones, however, when something very unexpected happened…

She opened her eyes.

She didn't even realize she'd closed them, but now that she's opened them, she noticed a different set of surroundings.

For one thing, the last thing she remembered was being slung over Zack's shoulder on a train station platform, about to take a flying leap onto the top of the train with armed guards firing at them. Now they appeared to be in a small house, and from the looks of the interior, it was in need of some repairs. Zack was also nowhere to be seen… and she was on a small double-size bed with nearly thread-bare sheets covering her. She reached a hand up to her face and sighed; she was still dressed in her Turks uniform.

Zack chose that moment to walk in and say, "Morning, Missy! I hope you slept well, because you were bordering on a high fever when I brought you in here!" Cissnei watched him step into the room with a tray of food and drink, which he set down on a small table to Cissnei's right. He walked over, a worried look on his face as he leaned in and pressed his forehead to hers. He closed his eyes, barely missing the massive crimson blush that swept over her cheeks.

"Your fever seems to be going down… that's a good sign…" Zack said with a sigh of relief. Cissnei sighed as well, more out of frustration and disappointment than anything. Zack went back to the tray and brought it to the bed, where he flipped down a pair of legs to reveal dinner in bed for Cissnei, who smiled wide.

"Thanks, Zack…" she said timidly, reaching for the fork and knife to cut into a T-bone steak. Zack sat back and smiled a bit, watching her eat. After a while, the silence became unbearable. Cissnei looked at Zack with concern on her face.

"If I could ask, Zack…" She started, "Why did you come for ME? You had your pick of ANYONE else that you knew, and you came after ME. Why?" Zack smiled.

"To answer your question, it's because you're more level-headed than most of the others. Sure, I could have chosen anyone else, but they probably would have screamed my presence to the winds the moment they figured out who I was. Cloud and Aerith for SURE would have alerted EVERY guard t my whereabouts, and that would result in my death FOR REAL. Same with Tseng; If he saw me alive, he'd probably call in the military, the guards, AND SOLDIER and make SURE he finished off whatever was left of me. The only other people who would possibly react quietly are dead, and two were as evil as you get. That only left YOU. And besides… I've never seen Aerith in anything besides her summer dress. I've seen YOU at the beach in less than your uniform… And I was REALLY impressed."

Cissnei's face burned and flushed a dark shade of red.

"R-really?" she asked, feeling faint.

Suddenly, reality seemed to warp, and, like before, there was Zack, sitting next to her. However, this time, what he said was ENTIRELY different.

"And besides, I've never seen Aerith even hold a weapon. I don't think she's even able to fight! You've been trained to use that chakram… I've seen how you fight. You're better than Reno AND Rude put together… and definitely better looking… especially if you smash their faces together," Zack said. For as disappointed as Cissnei was, she couldn't help but laugh as she pictured her face next to one that looked like someone had ACTUALLY smashed Reno and Rude's faces into one…

Soon Zack joined in, and the two laughed hard together for what seemed like hours. Finally, Cissnei, collapsed onto her side from aching ribs, looked at Zack. Against the drab, rotting boards behind him, she could definitely see the differences in his appearance.

He'd dyed his hair brown and added blonde streaks in varying places, and had cropped it so it hung in two long, bound bangs at the front and almost buzz-cut short at the back. His face, with closer inspection, seemed thinner and bore many scars, not JUST his well-known cross-shaped one on his cheek… which was missing. His nose seemed smaller, but JUST by a bit. Other than that, Cissnei understood why Zack had worn less form-fitting clothing; if he were to lead a simpler life under the Plate, he'd need to hide his muscled body from the prying eyes of those who'd take any interest in his story.

"There was… another reason I chose you, Cissnei," Zack said, his voice sounding solemn. Cissnei looked at him, her blush deepening.

"W-what was it?" she asked, nervous.

"Have you ever heard of a series of books based on the character Sherlock Holmes?" Zack asked. Cissnei nodded yes.

"So you know that Holmes and Watson were BOTH men, then. Good. You see, when I was four, II was diagnosed with a disorder that the doctors actually named after that character: I have what is known as Holmes Syndrome. My mental capacity is higher than that of most by a large degree, my IQ is much higher than average people, and I have an enhanced ability to analyze, perceive and plan out attacks before they happen. That's what I used back at Midgar to deal with the guards…" Zack said, his voice trailing off while he let Cissnei register what he'd said.

"So… basically, you say you were born as the real-life Sherlock Holmes?" Cissnei asked. Zack nodded.

"Exactly. So, I thought, since I'm done here and can't seem to sit still too long, I'll try my hand at being a detective, like him. But, in order for it to work, I'd need a Watson of my own… someone who has substantial intellect and at MOST an above-average combat ability. They also had to be female, because I'm not into trying my hand at Bromance. You're the best of both worlds to me, so the choice was clear. So… My question to you, Cissnei… Will you be my Watson, and stand by me no matter what may come?"

Cissnei looked at the boy as if he'd just proposed marriage. Her eyes began leaking tears like burst dams, her breathing became ragged and erratic, and her hands almost clamped themselves to her mouth. Zack let it sit for several minutes… and then groaned in pain as Cissnei jumped off the bed and tackled him to the ground with elated screams of "YES, I WILL!" Zack smiled and held her tight.

A few minutes later she climbed off him, blushing madly and trying to cover her face.

"I-I'm sorry about that… I've never FELT like this before… I'm too used to hiding my emotions behind that mask… but now, I have a chance to be my own person!" She squealed In joy at the idea, and then again… just because she'd been able to do it in the first place. Zack laughed a bit.

"You're like a little baby!" he joked, "You look SO cute!" he moved closer and held her from the side with a big grin, which only got bigger when she placed her hands around his wrists and gripped him tight.

"Thank you Zack… I don't think I could have gone back to killing again… Every time I aimed my weapon at someone after hearing you'd been "killed", I kept seeing your face in place of the other person's… I couldn't bear the thought of killing you…" Cissnei broke down in tears again, but managed to regain her composure when Zack tightened his arms around her just a little bit.

"That reminds me…" Zack started, "If we're going to be the Holmes and Watson of Midgar, we're going to need different names. Somehow, I doubt ShinRa's going to sit still hearing that a dead man and a kidnapped Turks Agent are running a detective agency under the Plate. What should we call ourselves…?" Cissnei thought it over for a second, and then seemed to perk up immediately.

"Ehrlock Shemos," she said, matter-of-factly. Zack chuckled a bit.

"So I'm supposed to be an "Irish Gentleman who got tossed through a space-ship airlock?" Zack asked. Cissnei giggled.

"I just rearranged "Sherlock Holmes"! If you don't like it…" She started, only for Zack to plant a small kiss on her cheek. She smiled and blushed again.

"No… It sounds mysterious and enigmatic enough… Erhlock Shemos… I like it!" Zack said. He thought for a moment before snapping his fingers.

"I know what we can call you…" he said…

_~And so, from that day, the lives of the two joined as one; A man and woman, acting as one and performing as a cohesive unit. It was the best of times for both, but their worst times were soon to befall them…_

_How do I know this, you wonder?_

_Simple…_

_My Name is Johana W. Hastings, previously CISSNEI OF THE TURKS.~_

_THE END FOR NOW…_

[A/N]Thank you for viewing. ^_^ I had an extended idea for this planned, so if anyone wants to see "Ehrlock"'s first meeting with the enigmatic (but quite obvious) Lord Seth Phiros (GET IT? XD ), then drop me a review. As always, if you have criticism, make sure it's constructive. ^_^

By the way, if anyone's wondering, Zack's comment about the "Irish Gentleman who got tossed through a space-ship airlock" is a hint on how to pronounce his name: Airlock Seamus=Ehrlock Shemos. ^_^

Tek Out. ^_^[A/N]


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